How many here PLANT trees as well as cut them?

Someone should tell the State of NY that trees don't need aggressive govt protection.

We just bought a few thousand more acres. We give people that have >50 acres of forestland an 80% tax break.

not sure i understand your point.

however, without tax incentives, land is much more likely to be converted to non-forested (or non-open space) uses, generally some form of development. the return on the investment is much higher by developing the property. although trees do generate a nice return over time, and there are tax advantages to growing/harvesting timber (depletion allowance/capital gains), at present, the development values just generate far more short term dollars.

those are reasons enough to encourage non-development of timberlands, especially productive ones. if this can be accomplished via tax incentives, i'm ok with that. in the end, the "open space" provides a societal benefit just by its existence.

but maybe i misinterpreted your statement.

At my previous home I planted a dozen fruit trees, plus some redbuds, a few serviceberry, a maple (for an Earth Day), katsura (sp?) and a few others. Sadly, most of them were cut down by the new owner, plus many of the older, taller trees. But that property was in a transition from 'a field 20 years ago' to suburban yard, so it could use some more trees. Some trees also grew themselves, namely several black walnuts (I had dumped a pail of old walnuts someplace) and a peach tree. I did sell over a thousand or so trees to people at my workplace two different years, I was very active in the Environmental Club, so I guess that was my big tree planting effort.

Although we never cut down healthy trees for firewood, just take dead wood or what others have cut for whatever reason, I do kill a lot of trees. We live in a very naturalized area, and nature and the squirrels and birds grow way too many trees too close together, and we have to get rid of some or we wouldn't have anyplace to walk or garden or grow fruit.

I bought my mom's house over 5 years ago, so now I live where I grew up. My family bought land that had been farmed. My father planted 50+ fruit trees and some walnuts, spruce, and other trees. I recently was startled by a photo from 43 years ago, there were just the spindly fruit trees here and there, otherwise it had that 'used to be a cornfield' look in most places. Now it looks pretty much llike a forest, although there are a few more paths and open spaces than a forest would have. Since we have many fruit trees still, we are always whacking down or mowing black walnut trees (once you have one and some squirrels, you get them everywhere) plus baby fruit trees, pulling out baby oaks, and then the weed trees like dogwood, boxelder, silver maple, poplar, etc. If you have a large yard and don't use chemicals or mow much of it, trees grow themselves, you don't need to plant them. But we are at max tree capacity, so we will just be killing the baby trees from here on out. Sounds cruel, but we are just protecting the trees and plants we already have.

I have planted a frrew in our yard, (~1 acre) but mostly our yard has self seeded with more trees than it can support - we have tons of saplings ~ 1" in diameter, spaced 3-4" apart, not sure what variety. I would love to find a good source for a quick lesson on how to identify which of these young trees are actually useful and how best to kill off the excess and junk trees so as to get a decent growth of healthy trees. We have a few big red oaks scattered around, and a lot of swamp maples, many of which have large areas of rot in them. I've been taking down a few trees every year that are either so badly rotted as to make me nervous or that have grown in an overly "ugly" way - i.e. mostly leaned over... I'm now at the point where I've gotten most of the ones that really "need" to come down, wouldn't mind doing something to improve the value of what's left and the next set of replacement trees.

Gooserider

Outdoorsman, if you are managing for wildlife you should be leaving some of those dead trees in the woods till they fall down. Here in Michigan, Pileated Woodpecker's love/need those big dead trees for nest holes. These are the biggest woodpeckers(other than Ivory billed) in North America about crow size. Also redheaded woodpeckers, Barred and screech owls, and wood ducks use the holes made by these big woodpeckers till the tree finally falls over. I have had Pileated woodpeckers nesting on my little 10 acre woodlot for two years now in a big dead elm. In S.W. Michigan I have never needed to help mother nature with planting trees. She and the squirrel's do that very well on there own.

What about taking down the dead trees as firewood, but putting nest boxes in the live trees? I don't like leaving dead trees up, at least in the yard both because they look bad, and because you never know when they are going to fall down and possibly do unplanned damage - I'd rather drop them in a controlled way so that I put them where I want them, instead of leaving it to Murphy (That guy always puts the trees in the wrong place - must be a law or something.... :lol: )

I will say that I have mixed feelings about encouraging woodpeckers - they are pretty birds, but they also have been doing a serious number on our house - hopefully when we can afford to reside w/ vinyl that will solve the problem... I do try and provide habitat in other respects, though again it's a bit of a mixed bag - the groundhogs (or something) won't stay out of my garden patch - I didn't plant the brocoli for them, but I haven't gotten any of it yet, etc.) All I know is I'd be a lot more willing to encourage the wildlife if it would only eat / live in the stuff that isn't what I put my work and money into...

Gooserider

Doesn't everything in a GW 'smoke :roll: All y'all OWB guys need to learn to season your wood.

Sorry to hear about your siding Gooserider. Maybe that’s why all the woodpeckers are pounding on your house cause you cut down all the snags. LOL I would most definitely take down any dead trees that were near the house, kids, whatever. I just leave them in the woods where they don’t make any sound when they fall.
The tree nesting box is also a wonderful draw for some species, owls and wood ducks in particular, but woodpeckers also get their grub from the dead and dieing trees (literally). Pileated woodpeckers though, make a new nest hole every year and also have holes for roosting. I don’t think they use nest boxes, could be wrong though. Even though all the dieing elms and ash are a real bummer it has been a real boon for woodpeckers and the Pileated in particular because of their very specialized nesting requirements...ie tall, large dia. dead and dieing trees.

No need to replant, the damn things replant themselves. always pulling cedar and douglas fir sedlings out of my garden planters, and everywhere else. I like it though= nature taking it`s own course.

We have tons of deer and several beavers and I still have to brush cut sapplings away from my lawn edge where our thick forest acres begin and it helps keep down the insect population near the house. I do a lot of trail maintenance for the atv and snowmobile clubs and we are constantly clearing sapplings from the esttablished trails. We never have a problem with new growth starting. My back 40 acres is starting to feel like a rainforest after all the rainy days we've had and its always cooler,darker and more moisture than my yard.

I'm also cutting back a lot of junk on a regular basis, but what I haven't figured out is how to get desirable trees to come up instead of trash... I seem to get a lot of swamp maples, and a fair number of other trees that I think are poplar (white outer wood with a dark brown / tan heart, smells really nasty when first cut) but I don't seem to get any oaks, even though we have plenty of them in the yard already. Either my tree identification is off, or my existing BIG red oaks aren't putting out any fertile acorns (They put out plenty otherwise!)

Or is there a better tree that I should be trying to get growing? Far as I'm concerned the "ideal tree" would be fast growing, high btu/cord, and low maintainance - it would be nice if it provided some honeybee forage and / or edible fruits, but by no means is that as important as the fuelwood potential...

Gooserider

Gooserider, If you can get some shagbark hickory saplings or some of the nuts to plant in gallon pots those are tops for firewood. One of the highest Btu's per cord of any hard wood. It splits really easy and is straight grained and dries a lot faster than oak. Also the animals love the nuts. I have to admit they are tops on my list of nuts to eat also if I can beat the squirrels to them They taste just like Pecans. I have about 10-15 huge Shag barks growing very close in my woods and thats where I plop down every squirrel season. Usually no problem to get my limit ever time in that spot. Its like Mardi Gras and thanksgiving all rolled into one for every squirrel in the area when the nuts are ripe in the fall. I think turkeys like em too.

About 5 years ago I noticed white oaks growing around here so I mark the saplings with red engineer tape.

In the fall I transplant the smaller ones to a more desirable location. Right now I probably have about 150 taped...btw I tape 'em so I don't run over them in the winter or cut them down with the brush hog or brush whacker in the summer.

My other trees have no problem re-seading themselves like maple, ash, poplar and elm. In the past growth will return from stumps and as I'm brush whacking I thin out that stump growth to just 1 leader and it's surprising how fast that tree will grow. Since 77 I have trees that I cut twice that way.

I enjoy hanging out in the woods and brush whacking is one of the few things I can do in the rain. In the fall I'll rig up a huge long tarp so I can drive my tractor under it. Sometimes I'll have a small fire going in a log holder so I can dry off my work shirts..which I'm always swapping out, or I skewer some hotdogs. We keep a few field folding chairs there with a transistor radio. While I maybe in the woods for 4 hrs I certainly don't work that long in them as I'm a believer of taking frequent breaks to beat down the drudergy factor. Right now I'm off to make little piles of brush I cut down earlier last month.

The brush will either get hauled off to burn or they'll stay as habitat for small mammals but in the wagon will be a folding comfy chair, a cooler, radio, TecNu and bug spray....sorry for the ramble now I'm outie.

As I said in that other thread- I'm looking to keep some diversity with native trees, but manage the property somewhat intensively. The NH nursery is a pretty good source of saplings. In previous years I've got hazelnuts, native rises, native plums, and other species.